Arctic Melt-off: Ahead of Schedule

Hundreds of scientists and government officials from around the world are meeting in Bangkok, preparing to issue a May 4 report on what steps should be taken to combat global warming. But a new study released May 1 showed that one of the group’s predictions on climate change, made in an earlier February report, may already be too conservative.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) had said that Arctic sea ice was shrinking by as much as 5.4 percent per decade. At that rate, it could disappear entirely toward the end of this century.